There will be a briefing call today from The California Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development to discuss their policy on the EB-5 Program and recent changes made to the way they designate Targeted Employment Area's (TEAs). Here is more information:

Questions: For any questions, please email GO-Biz at EB5info@gov.ca.gov

Please join the California Governor?s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) for a conference call to discuss updates to the EB-5 Foreign Investor Program. The state portion of the program is being formally transferred from the Business, Transportation & Housing Agency to GO-Biz and our office will implement policy changes to make the program more efficient and consistent.

"We have been asking people who have an interest in projects that require TEA designation in California to let the Governor's Office know how important it is to have the TEA designation status in order for them to successfully raise EB-5 financing.

Our goal is to make California a competitive place for EB-5 projects. We believe that the Governor's Office will make some changes in their policy to expand TEA designations in California, but we don't yet know whether they will go beyond granting TEA status to projects located in census tracts that would qualify individually as high unemployment areas. We hope that they will go further and allow some reasonable census tract aggregation, but we need to show more support for this from project owners and regional centers."

For those interested in hearing what the State with the largest number of EB5 Visa Regional Centers has to say about the recent changes made to the way they designate TEAs this call should provide valuable information.